Ramotar’s non-assent of Local Govt. Bill is executive lawlessness - Ramjattan

Ramotar’s non-assent of Local Govt. Bill is executive lawlessness – Ramjattan

Mar 12, 2014 News

President Donald Ramotar’s refusal to assent to a Bill passed by the House calling for Local Government Elections on or before August 1, 2014, represents the height of executive lawlessness.

AFC Leader,
Khemraj Ramjattan

This is the view held by Alliance For Change (AFC) Leader, Khemraj Ramjatttan, who in an invited comment yesterday opined that the President is afraid to go to the polls under the reformed regime put in place.
“He knows that the PPP gun get dem tail cut,” said Ramjattan, who added that the President is fearful of the result of any such election, given that he does not want the People’s Progressive Party’s support base to realize how many have shifted away from what he calls the current “non-Jagan party.”
Ramjattan said that the excuse being used by the ruling party to not call local government elections as yet is “laughable and ludicrous”.
The PPP/C had stated that there needs to be a voter education campaign before any election, given that the majority of the citizens may not be au fait with the processes.
The last local government election was held in 1994, some 20 years ago.
Ramjattan is adamant that the President must assent to the Bills as well as have the Minister of Local Government issue the commencement orders for those assented to, so that the process for the holding of elections can commence.
Responding to statement by a Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), that even if the President were to assent to the Bill, it would be unable to run off an election by August 1, Ramjattan said that while he still holds the view that the elections can be held by that time, if GECOM is unable to make the deadline, then they must be held as soon as possible thereafter.
He said that this was the reason why the Bill was amended in the House.
The Opposition amended the Bill, stating that the election must be held on or before August 1.
The Bill that was brought to the House had initially had December 31, but the Opposition said that this was unacceptable.
The President has however not assented to that Bill. This was confirmed over the weekend when this publication spoke with a senior official at GECOM, and was further corroborated following perusals of the Official Gazette.
The GECOM official had explained that even if the President assents to the Bill, it would be impossible for the Commission to hold the election by that time, as it requires a minimum of 180 days to prepare.
The official further pointed out that money required to carry out the action plan in order to successfully host the election, is provided for in the Budget.
The 2014 Budget is yet to be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration and a vote.

Head of State
Donald Ramotar

It was further pointed out that unlike the 1994 Local Government election where the system used was not ‘first past the post,’ there were only 71 constituencies. This time around, there are 585 additional constituencies. As a result, GECOM will have to process 656 different kinds of ballot papers for each constituency.
To compound the situation further, as it currently stands, on Nomination Day, all nominations and lists in the 656 constituencies will have to be processed.
According to the official, this will pose a significant challenge for GECOM and as a result, the Commission is now petitioning Government to instead allow for three days of nominations.
It is unclear what government’s reaction will be to this.